Is your practice red enough?

Red is a popular colour and has many meanings in the 21st century. One of the strongest associations it has is with the left; it has long been linked with socialism and communism – think of the Red Flag – and is of course the colour of the UK Labour party. In the less politically charged nautical world, red is the colour of the navigation light on the left of a sea-going vessel, or port side, as opposed to green on the right, or starboard – an internationally recognised colour-coding system which keeps everyone going in the right direction.

‘What does all this have to do with dentistry?’ you may ask. ‘Why does my practice need to be ‘red enough’?’ In a predominantly right-handed world, have you ever considered how your practice set-up would cope should a left-handed clinician join your team?

Research suggests that about 10% of the world population is left-handed[i]. That doesn’t seem like a lot and perhaps if you run a practice of right-handed clinicians, you’re thinking the chances of a left-handed colleague joining the team are remote enough for you not to worry too much about it. However, there is evidence to suggest that left-handed clinicians are likely to be amongst the most skilled as the right-hand-side of their brain is dominant, which is associated with good spacial awareness.

The good news is that it doesn’t take much to make sure your treatment rooms are able to cater for everyone.

Make your next chair ambidextrous

Belmont has two ambidextrous chairs which are designed to accommodate all working positions and both single-handed and assisted procedures. This allows every clinician to work in comfort and to the best of their ability, able to concentrate on the patient and treatment with no distractions.

The Voyager III has all the features you expect from a Belmont chair – ergonomic, flexible, comfortable chairs in a range of beautiful colours – plus useful ambidextrous features such as the base-mounted swing-around delivery system which allows the clinician to position the equipment wherever they wish, and a chair-mounted rotatable cuspidor for left- and right-handed use.

The tbCompass ‘Flexible Dr System’boasts the same ambidextrous features plus a height-adjustable operator’s console and an ‘E’ (electric) delivery system which supports a larger range of instruments and additional features.

Both these chairs feature the advanced ‘Below-the-Patient’ delivery systems which are mounted below and behind the chair, creating the most compact, responsive and discreet dental treatment centre possible, and freeing up space above and around the patient for maximum working comfort and patient peace-of-mind.

The future is brown?

If red is the colour of left, and green right, the future of dental chairs has to be brown – a mixture of the two that allows the clinician complete freedom to set their working position. Belmont’s ambidextrous chairs make that possible, and you can get them in restful neutral colours like brown, caramel and cream!

In fact, brown was the colour of Hampton Wick Dental Centre’s winning chair in our latest ‘Who’s Smiling in #MyBelmontChair’ competition – a truly trend-setting practice! You can now follow that trend too… by making a choice from our range of beautiful upholstery colours.

Find out more about Belmont’s range of colourful and ergonomic chairs, including the ambidextrous Voyager III and tbCompass ‘Flexible Dr System’ click here.

Belmont equipment advice after lockdown

You might be wondering what you should do with your treatment centre before re-opening your practice or is there any protocol that you should be following. We are sharing with you 8 Simple Steps on how to protect your dental equipment when leaving unused for long periods. Please read carefully prior to taking any action.

If complete shutdown for an unspecified period of time is imminent take off the clean water bottle and tip any residue water away and put the bottle back on empty. After removing the couplings and handpieces from the delivery system hold the hoses over a bucket and press the flush button or run the automatic flush if your unit has one. It’s important remembering while flushing to press the syringe buttons in order to release any trapped water and continue to run the flush until the handpiece hoses run dry.

Do not forget to clean your suction hoses and spittoon with your recommended suction cleaner. Then run water through the hoses to make sure any residue left in the hoses is diluted down.

Make sure the suction pump is switched on before cleaning the hoses.

When the system is completely dry and the suction hoses cleaned switch the main chair switch off and any chair isolator in the room “turn off”.

If all the treatment centres in the practice are to be shutdown for a period of time make sure the staff turn off the compressor and the suction pump.

If you are concerned about shutting down your equipment call your equipment dealer to help you run through this process safely. They will always be happy to help and advise at this difficult time.

When the time comes to return the dental treatment centre back to full use, please be aware that you will need to test your waterlines as per your normal CQC protocol. This action is essential part of the process as you want to check that you don’t have any biofilm build-up during the period of stagnation.